Well, we just had a pretty great race, and we have a very tired Tim Horeini who has not slept, I think, till since Wednesday night, has not had a full sleep. That's what happens, though, when the races are on the other side of the world. Tim, you've had a crazy schedule the last four or five days, huh?

Yeah, it's been busy, Adam. Not a lot of sleep mixed in with a lot of the craziness, but for people who work night shift, I got to take my hat off to you.

Oh, my God. Yes.

Because I don't know how you do it.

I got it. The last text I got from Tim, and then I think after that, he assumed I was in bed was, Williams, fuck. And that was at 1:05 AM. We're recording this, by the way, at 07:00 PM on Sunday. And of course, so listen, there's so much to talk about, but I think that is the event we got to start with. And that is Alexander Albon and Daniel Ricardo. Daniel coming off. People called it a bad qualifying. I don't know how qualifying 11th is bad when you're in a racing bowl.

I strongly disagree with that. I do, too. I firmly disagree with that being, Adam, a bad qualifying. Where in that was it bad? He was a couple of hundreds of a second from punching his ticket into the next round of qualifying.

Yeah, no. I think that's it. Like, R. B. Should be thrilled about this weekend, and we'll talk about it on balance a little bit later. But he had a good qualifying, a tough start. Albon had a quicker go and was catching Daniel Ricardo, that is, clipped a back tire. It was... Spone them both out. It took half an hour to repair the wall. Frankly, these are just race events that happen, Tim. They're not... It's nothing untoward here. I think everybody always raced to go like, Whose fault is it? I think it's just one of those where you go three wide into a turn. I think Lance Stroll was on the other side of Daniel Ricardo, and that happens. But for Daniel, it's like, Oh, man, that little bit of confidence that he would have grabbed from qualifying, it has to be extremely frustrating, although I think he's going to be great in Beijing. My question is for Williams, how much of a problem does this create? All we have talked about over the last couple of weeks, Tim, is the crash, the lack of extra chassis. They just fixed the chassis up. Albon is in the chassis that didn't need to be fixed, which is formerly Logan Sargent's chassis.

And He spun it out of the wall. What does that mean for China?

Yeah, so that chassis is now damaged. Oh, no. Yeah. So it got sent back to Grove, so back to the UK base to be repaired again. And you know what? The team sounds pretty confident they're going to be able to repair it and get it out to China, no problem. I think the big thing is the amount of money that they spent on not only the repairs at them, but also the freight as as well. Freighting is going to be expensive for them, and that choose into a lot of things for them.

Budget cap, specifically.

Yeah, that too. But since there was so much crash damage for them this weekend, The issue with all of it is it really backs up your production of new parts, new components to cover crash damage. This third chassis that they are trying to get ready and get into the system for Miami. And then also on top of all that, you're trying to upgrade the car. And so you're having to balance this juggling act. And then for a team that doesn't have the infrastructure to support all of it, a lot of things, I think, are just going to end up falling by the wayside. And I think it could put a damper on upgrades. We could get to a race, and Williams could have a major upgrade come, and only one of the drivers gets it. And that's happened to Williams before in the past.

Yeah, with George Russell and Nicholas Latifi, right?

Exactly. Where it ended up being the same with Alex and Nicholas, where it was not enough infrastructure to get parts ready. So Nicholas ended up sticking with old components. Alex got all the new components, and then Nicolas went out to qualify them anyways. But anyway, regardless, it was a long time ago. But that being said, it really just throws a whole wrench into your upgrade schedule. And as for the start of the race, Adam, I mean, Daniel Ricardo got screwed because he started on a harder tire compound than those behind him. Everybody who was coming for him from behind, we're all... Most of them are on soft tire compound. So I think for him, it was like the mindset was just survive lap one without getting passed by everybody. It's like, just survive, get the tire into a window So it's competitive. And then just hold on, just hold on. That's all you got to do is hold on for a few laps while everything gets strung out, and we're good. And then, yeah, just unfortunately, he's caught. I think Davidson did a good job of breaking it down on Sky Sport. Essentially, he's just looking.

He's looking into the mirror where Lance is. And I think Alex is thinking like, Hey, I can go around the outside here. And then Alex is like, Oh, this isn't going to work because Dan is coming over and he doesn't know I'm here. And so that's It's just a racing incident, unfortunately. But Ricardo is getting a new chassis himself, Adam. He's getting one in China. He'll be replacing that one, too.

So that is official then? Yeah. Okay. Well, the fact that he did it with the old chassis in 11th place, I thought was a positive step for Racing Bulls. And I think since we're talking about them now, I think that this was an extremely positive weekend for them. Yuki Sonoda has been spectacular. But I think when you compare Racing Bulls, and I'm going to call them Racing Bulls because I can't call them Big Carb, when you compare them with Williams. Williams was the team that you and I had pegged as a team to take a real step forward, finish sixth or seventh, hopefully. And that would be an enormous step for them. Even though they finished right around that spot last year, the further up the grid you go, the harder it becomes to move forward. They are now, I would say, fighting for their life to project that over the next 10 races because of the lack of the extra chassis, because of some unfortunate incidents. Logan Sargent gave them a heart attack in FP1, and then, of course, Alex Albon during the race. And now we know that that chassis got to be replaced, and where does that put them for upgrades?

Meanwhile, Racing Bulls, who had, objectively, the worst car on the grid last year. They finished last. They were a bad team. It was bad. They are looking like the team that should lead the midfield, or at least whatever version of the midfield starts from six under, because I feel like in the past, we've had top three teams, middle four teams, bottom four teams. This year, it feels like five and five. You got top, you got bottom. I'm looking at that Racing Bowl team and the way Yuki's raced, the way Daniel Riccardo qualified, and I'm thinking, boy, that's going to be difficult. And the other team, obviously, that's in there with them is Haas. So long story short, looking at Yuki Sonoda's weekend, first time ever scoring points in front of the home crowds in Japan. He had a great race.

Yeah, he had an awesome race. He was great, right? I think for Yuki, and you and I talked about it on the last show, was just essentially being able to absorb all the pressure. Yes. But that comes with the home race, and there is a ton of it because he's the only Japanese driver on the grid. So all the attention is going to be on him. All the media attention, fan attention, everything, right? There's not another Japanese driver on the grid that can help alleviate some of that pressure where it's like media can go and cover that angle instead of covering the other angle. And so there's that. But then on top of all that, there's internal pressure that he's putting on himself. I always look at drivers when they go to their home race because it's like, that's some of the most pressure outside of fighting for a world Championship that you're going to face. It's like once you're able to deal with that, then you know you've really got something on your hands here. Yuki, man, he drove a hell of a race. There were points where I wasn't too sure who was going to get that 10th place because you had Hulkenberg, you had Lance, and you had Yuki all fighting for that.

At one point, there was more. At one point, there was like, Bottas was in there.

Bottas, who had a good weekend.

Yeah, Sergeant was in there. You had quite a few drivers who were at one point fighting for that final point paying position. He did great. Flawless, man. I thought he was incredible.

Yeah, I agree. You know what, Tim? What I like about it is he seems to He's far more calm, cool, and collected it than he has been in previous years, and that's maturity. But he also seems very comfortable with the car. You don't hear a lot out of Yuki now. It's just I'm going and I'm racing, and that's it. When you When you talk about the difference between his car and the top five cars, it's a huge difference. It really is. I know we're talking 10th of a second, but it's huge.

Yeah, that's big.

It's interesting because you look at the top 10, and it's always basically the same five teams, right? Now, today, Lance Stroll made a charge for him for 10th place and almost got him, right? It was looking like he was going to shave a couple of seconds off every lap. I don't think the tires last long enough. But what is it with Lance's car this weekend that was different? Because obviously, like Daniel Riccardo, which again, I'm like, why are people so hard on this guy? That was an incredible qualifying, really great improvement. Lance is another guy where I go, Okay, I think there's more context to this situation that people realize, and I know we're Canadians, and I know Lance is Canadian. I know anybody watching this is going to be like, Well, it's just Canadian bias. What is it, Tim? He did us and our Canadian bias. What was it about Lance's car that was so different from Fernando Alonso? Because their set up were different this weekend, correct?

Yeah, they were. I mean, you remember how you and I were talking about the upgrade that they had brought or they were going to be bringing, and then they unleashed this big upgrade, probably the biggest upgrade on the grid. Lance was the first one to get his hands on that. That was a decision by the team to do that, to do the arrow rig testing on his car before they gave it over to Fernando to allow him to go out and do what he does. But for Lance, yeah, getting that in FP1, having to do the arrow rig testing in FP1, doesn't really give you a ton of time for setup and understanding what that particular car needs. For the team, I think for trying to figure out which way they wanted to go in in terms of setup and direction, both cars had the big upgrade, but they ended up switching out Lance's rear wing with a different rear wing that ended up costing them quite a bit of time, not only on the straights and straight line speed, but it ended up affecting a bit in cornering and grip and that thing. I think for Fernando, it was all about the direction that he wanted to go in, which was basically feel.

How does the car feel? Let's push in that direction. Then for Lance, I think his side of the garage maybe wanted to go in the direction of what does the data of our testing and simulation say? We'll go in that direction for that setup. I don't think it really didn't pay off for Lance, obviously. But for Fernando, he had to PlayStation set the God Mode, man.

He sure did. Well, and I think Fernando is a really great example of how to manage tires, and degradation was a major factor. If you're a passive Formula One fan, you watch every three, four races or something like that. Today, you would have really seen, I think, in such an obvious way, the role tires have to play, and that's because the track was so hot to begin and then cooled throughout the race when the wind picked up. But, Tim, it seems like there's a couple of things going on here. I'm going to set this up, and then I want you to walk us through. Obviously, the Red Bull car seems to be pretty much good at everything, right? Yeah. Difficult to point out a flaw. Ferrari is, I think, a lot closer than people give it credit for, and they seem to have got their tire degradation under control. If there's anything about the McLaren car, which is squarely the third fastest car on the grid, but feels like sometimes it can catch Ferraris, and they finished ahead of Ferrari in other races this year. It seems like tire degradation is a real factor on that car.

And Charles Leclerc did a very good job managing his tires and was a really good team player today, too, letting Carlos buy without any fuss. You saw Fernando Alonso manage his tires like only somebody with 20 years of experience in Formula One can. What is it with, A, Fernando's technique, and B, McLaren's car, comparing and contrasting? Fernando is really good at math. Is it Oscar and Lando being young guys, or is this a car issue, and they're going to have to fix it?

I think, well, one of the things, so I'll backtrack a bit with Lance. So towards the end of the race, they slapped on the soft tire compound. It was basically like a hale Mary, let's try and score this last point if we can. And they're like, they brought him in. I think he did quite a few stops because of all of that, and then brought him in, slapped on the soft tire, and he got as far as he could, and then the tire just gave up. That's because the surface at this track is very abrasive. We take a look and we talked a lot about that, but rain, it's an abrasive track surface. Now, When it comes down to the Aston Martin, the McLaren. So originally Aston Martin was actually struggling a lot with tire degradation at the beginning of the season in the races. They really struggled with that. And then for McLaren, they weren't as bad on tire deg as we originally thought that they were going to be. Their weakness is slow speed corners, where with the Aston Martin, Aston Martin has a great DRS effect. It's really strong in high speed stuff now.

It's not as draggy as it once was, like last year. So it's a little quicker in a straight line when the setup is just perfect. And then when we talk about the tire degradation itself, some of that comes down to actual driving as well. How does a driver manage tire degradation? How do they actually manage the tire itself? There's a couple of factors that go into that. One of them is how does the driver bring the tire into the right optimal temperature, so where it operates the best? It's almost like when you get to the hard tire compound, it's almost like it's a slow build. It's a slow build, it's a slow build, and then the tire starts coming to life. It comes to life, a few laps later, still coming, and then eventually, you have performance that gets unlocked from the hard tire. With the soft tire, it's like performance immediately. It warms up really fast. It provides you with instant grip, and it's the highest performing tire on the grip. But the hard tire, you can reach close to those levels. It takes a long time, though, to do it. And then it's performance window, it lengthens.

It's not like a huge peak, and then it just drops off. It lengthens and it eventually dies. So if you look at when Let's see here. I think it was Lando and Oscar, when they both swapped over to the hards, it took them a while for the car to come to life, the tire to come to life and come in the window. But then when it did, they were very competitive. For Fernando, towards the end of the race, that's him. That's tire management. That's him taking care of everything.

And then pulling Oscar, towing Oscar in.

Yeah, but just keeping Oscar at bay. Just keeping him- Because Oscar was a half second behind him for what?

Five, six laps easily.

And Oscar just couldn't close the gap. He just couldn't get in. And Fernando's tires were toast. Those things were... Forget about it. Even Andrea Stella, even Andre Estella said afterwards, Fernando is incredible.

He's just a great driver.

He's worked with him before in the past, but he knows what Alonso can do. And he's just like, that's just Fernando Alonso. That's all it is to it. And for Oscar, it just takes more experience. He just needs more experience with the tire to just to figure out those last key little tiny details, and then eventually he's going to get it. But that takes years. I mean, that's why Alonso is Alonso, right? One of the things I always say with Fernando Adam is he left Formula One, and he went out, and he drove a bunch of different stuff. And that is just so, so important for a driver, I think, is always driving different things. Because when you get in a situation when a formula car changes, you have to change with it. And if you're stuck in the same way of doing something and you're forcing the car to do something that it just doesn't want to do, then you have to figure out a way to work with it. That's what he does. He's He's able to extract the performance. He's able to get to the performance and the peak levels of the performance of the car super quickly.

Super fast, Adam, he is on it. Even with new upgrades where the car is like, Okay, this is a different car right Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He'll push to get to that limit right away, man. And that's what makes him just such an incredible talent.

Is it fair to say that Fernando Alonso is probably the most tenacious driver in Formula One history? Yeah, for sure. And what I mean by that is tenacity, the ability to react despite what's thrown at you and still become successful. And he hasn't had a championship-winning car for 15 years. It's been a long time. I guess there was a couple of years of Ferrari Cuda, maybe. But you're right, he's masterful at some of that stuff. And not every driver is good enough to leave Formula One and go, Okay, I'm coming back now. But what you notice about Fernando is that even when he's on vacation, he's driving.

Always. Never stops. He doesn't stop. He never stops driving at him. He doesn't stop. That's one of the things. When I coach drivers, that's one of the main things that I'm always making sure that however far my journey goes with them, it's what else are you driving? And always make sure you're driving something That's something that I learned from when I was in Formula Renault and I was instructing at a racing school. Then I was also instructing in road cars, different Formula cars on different types of tracks, different types of surfaces with different types of cars, were they road cars, race cars, whatever it was. I was always in something different, doing something different, right seat driving, whatever it was, feeling something something different to try and feel where you can get the most out of that car. Then when it came time to get into the real race car, and this is something I didn't even know that I was doing until I had done it, was the fact that, Oh, the car is doing this. I think if I do this, I can get it better here, and the car will feel better here, and I can get a better shot here.

That just naturally started to happen because of what I was doing before. That's just something that some drivers, in the lower categories or younger drivers, just don't necessarily... They don't do.

Well, and they're so focused on... It's like when they talk about any other professional athlete, they say you got to play other sports. You got to develop other muscles and other ways of doing things. Otherwise, if you just focus on one sport, you're probably not going to maximize your own potential.

You're going to get in a situation where you're just going to be totally screwed and you're like, How do I figure this out? I can't bring this set I can't bring the car set up to me and I can't go to it. What are we doing? I always was really big on that. I still am. But yeah, Fernando, I feel like he is that driver, whereas I've said it on this podcast where he could make anything fast. It doesn't matter what it is. He'll get in it. He'll get to the limit of the car quickly, on it immediately. You saw that this weekend with him and brand new set of upgrades. And he's like, No, no, I want to... Let's go this way. Boom, boom, boom. We're gone. And then just holding on for dear life towards the end of this race.

Yes. And pulling in Oscar. And then George Russell eventually got by Oscar Piasri. It was actually a good piece of driving by George Russell to even grab a few extra points at the end of the race. He is out qualifying Lewis Hamilton. He is out racing Lewis Hamilton. And Lewis Hamilton, for his part, let him buy. There are going to be questions, and it seems like an odd thing to ask of Lewis Hamilton. I know that there was the reporter that said, Are you jealous of the Ferrari drives? And he's like, Can you ask me some better questions, please? But not been a great start to Lewis's time. His last year at Mercedes, he's already called it his worst. What do you think is going on between the two of them? Why is George able to extract the most out of a very mediocre car, and Lewis doesn't seem to be able to match that?

It was an interesting weekend for Mercedes, Adam. It was up and down for them. You even At one point, I think Louis said, I believe it was Saturday after qualifying, Louis was even saying, Hey, this is one of the best cars I've driven in this regulation, since the 2022 regulation.

And that's saying something.

That's saying a lot. And then all of a sudden, you get the race day and it's like, Oh, jeez, what happened here? Oh, my God. I think for the difference between Lewis and George, in particular in this race, is just simply the strategy They just decided... Mercedes trying to do a one stopper with Lewis, try to run them as long as he can on the hard tire, and it just didn't work out. The amount of degradation that we've been talking about, the amount of degradation that they were suffering from, it wasn't possible for them in that car. But I think one of the things that people are missing here is I think that Mercedes cut their deficit to Red Bull in half from last year.

So if If you go back six months- I don't think we knew. I don't think most people know that.

Yeah, go back six months. Go back to Japan last year because this is a great track for us to get a barometer on where everybody is. If you go back then and you take a look and you see what the deficit was from Mercedes to Red Bull, and then you come to this and you see where they were. There were glimpses where they were able to get everything dialed in. And man, they were only five-tenths, like 4/10 sometimes. I think that's a lot of teams had that this weekend. And that's one of the things that we're not really talking about that we should be is the amount that teams have closed the gap to Red Bull and how important that is to focus on because that tells us that teams are catching up.

Yeah. And that's a major takeaway. Toto said no one's catching Max this year. I don't agree with that, Adam. I want to get into that. Max also with a very funny reply saying, Well, Toto has been saying a lot of nice things about me this year. We know what Toto wants. Sure he has. Yeah. It's funny that they used to be like mortal enemies, and it's so funny how wins change in Formula One. But Tim, talk about Ferrari's comments, because you don't learn anything from winning the way Red Bull does in terms of, if you're watching the sport, Red is dominating. It's fantastic. And Adrian knew he's built an incredible car, and they've got an incredible driver, and the whole organization is great. This is not me taking away from them. But somebody is going to catch Red Bull eventually. It's going to happen. I think people believe because we've had one, two finishes most of the year, with the exception of Australia, that it's not going to happen this year. Where does Ferrari see themselves?

Yeah, for Ferrari, they see themselves as being able to put pressure on Red Bull Racing. They feel that they can challenge for a constructors' championship this year. And you know what, Adam? Tend to agree with them.

Why do you agree with them? Because that's a bold statement, Tim.

Man, look at Australia. Even if Verstappen didn't have the break caliper break failure, Carlos Sainz still would have won that race. You think so? Yeah, they were the faster team. Mclaren even said that Carlos would have won anyways. Even Sergio Perez said that Ferrari probably would have won anyways. So that tells us that The Ferrari is going to be strong at certain racetracks. And they still haven't brought a big upgrade. So we don't know what that looks like, and we don't know how much performance they can get from that. I'm thinking new upgrade. They're maybe about three to four-tenths in the race right now. They're off of Red Bull, but they do really well with managing the tire. You bring an upgrade, maybe it gives you two-tenths. That right there changes the game, man. We're talking now, we're talking Ferrari's fighting for P2, putting pressure on either Max or Sergio, whoever is in P1 at that moment for race victories. And that's all you got to do. And Leclerc even said it, and he's right, and I agree with him. You just got to put pressure. You put some pressure on them. And I think once you start putting pressure, that's when people start to really make mistakes.

Max has been flawless, flawless at him. And I think you just put him under a little bit of pressure and you just see what happens. We don't know. He's probably going to still maintain being incredible. Let's not forget that. But I still think, and I agree with Ferrari, that, yeah, I think eventually, they're going to be able to start putting even more pressure on Red Bull for wins. The driver's Championship, I think we did say this at the beginning of the season. It's probably Max's. It probably is Max's for sure. But the constructors is where I'm just, I don't think so, man.

You're not convinced yet?

Not yet. I still think Mercedes, okay, forget it. Total Wolf saying no one's going to catch Max, and maybe you're not going to catch Max in Red Bull. But I think Ferrari still has that chance. They aren't that far off. For Ferrari, in qualifying, they go a couple of different ways on some setup changes. They're probably sniff and pull position. Again, all you need is some clean air with these cars. Now, you get some clean air and you're good to go. That's it, man. You get the Monaco. Let's talk about Monaco. You get the Monaco, Ferrari outqualifies or they're not beating them.

No.

You go to this track, it's hard to pass. You go qualify, Max Verstappen, he's not He's not passing.

And also, Charles Leclerc needs to win a flippin race in Monaco. The luck that he has had in qualify. Remember a couple of years ago, he qualified first, put it in the wall, couldn't race. It's just First, I'm sure Charles got to win that race this year. Secondly, Tim, I think the problem and why it's so hard to believe as a fan is because the only time Max has been beaten in the last season and a half is Singapore, where it was a real race. Because Australia was a retirement. His break's caught on fire. So we always think, Oh, Max is going to do this. But one thing I do want to throw out there is, A, Ferrari looks really, really good. B, in the races that he's been in, and remember, he had appendicitis and had to have his appendix removed, Carlos Sines has been on the podium every single time. Every single time.

He's been awesome, man. Listen, I'm always pounding that Carlos Sines drum. You know that, baby? You are. You've always said that. Carlos Sines. He's going to outwork you. That's what he's going to do. That's what he did. I mean, qualifying still not where it should be for him. I think it's... Obviously, when you're comparing him to Charles Leclerc, who I think is the best qualifier on the grid, hands down. When it comes to the racing, though, Carlos is incredible. He's an incredible racing driver. He's really at that peak now where he just knows everything he needs to do within a race to get to where he needs to go. For Japan, I don't think he really believed in that final stint that he was going to be able to get that to get that podium position. Charles Leclerc had driven a hell of a race, man. Trying to do his strategy, which was, I believe he was running, like trying to do a one stopper as well at one point. He the medium tire for forever. I don't know how Leclerc was able to keep that medium tire alive as long as he did. I think for Carlos, I just think he was just like, There's no way I'm going to be able to catch that.

But the amount of the offset between how new the tire was, what his teammate was running, the drivers that were in front of him as well, the tire offset in the deck was just so high that he was just able to be like, Okay, I'm going to track down my teammate here, and I'm going to take that podium away from him, and no one's going to stop me. Because if Ferrari were to radio him like, Hey, don't pass your teammate. He's going to be like... I'm passing him. And I'm passing him.

And Charles let him do it, too. Charles was like, Yeah, no, he's got it.

It's going to happen. A hundred %. I think they're good teammates. Leclerc really supports Carlos every time he's asked. He always speaks very highly of him at the same time whenever we talk to him about Carlos. And I just think He's going to be missed at that team. And he's having a hell of a season, man. Adam, he's doing one of those, You're going to let me go? All right, I'm going to show you.

Oh, absolutely. Now, it was interesting. And every time we talk about Carlos until we know where he's going, especially when he's performing like this, we're going to talk about where he's going. It's going to happen. Sergio Perez today said he should know in the next month whether he'll be in that Red Bull seat. Do you know anything about Carlos Carlos and Red Bull?

Nothing on that front. I still don't think that that is the right fit for him. I think the question is basically, we all know Carlos wants a long term stability, and I think it all depends on what Total Wolf wants to. Does he want to give out long term stability? Does he want to give out more than two years? Because I think the I think the fear with that may be what happens with Kimi Antenelli. What if he turns out to be really great? And we have a situation where we're getting piastried, where you bring this guy up, give him everything he needs, make sure he does well. You see that he's really starting to grow and develop and evolve, and then all of a sudden another team swoops in and is like, Hey, we'll give you a seat right now. If you just leave that Mercedes program, it can happen. That stuff does happen. I think for Toto, that may be a bit of a fear, right? Because Verstappen was a driver that he wanted for quite a while. Before Max got to the F1, that was a driver Toto Wolf really coveted to try and get, but he couldn't give him a seat.

He couldn't give him a Mercedes seat at the time.

Right. Now, I know Williams doesn't want to be treated like the junior Mercedes program, but I'm sure they could benefit from a Kimi Antenelli and Alex Albon pair. By the way, Logan Sargent had a good race until the spin-up. I want to say it was really good.

The thing with William, so Adam, is they've got their driver development plan. I don't know if James Valls is willing to shift on that anymore. They're already buying the engines. They're paying for the rear ends on their car for Mercedes. It's like, We're not your junior team. We're not doing that. I think that's where James is, to be honest with you. I really don't think that they could take Kimi Antenelli and throw him in that car. It defeats the purpose of having a young driver program.

Exactly. Why would any extremely talented driver sign up for the Williams Young Driver program watching all their young drivers get superseded by Mercedes's guy.

A hundred %. Perfect. You just said it.

You know what? It's interesting. With that Mercedes second seat, obviously, if you're Toto and you get max for a stop and you probably don't care. Well, the chips fall where they with with Kim Antonelli. But I'm curious about what they do if they don't get max, which is pretty likely that they're not going to get max at least this year. We don't think Carlos is a great fit. We know that Carlos has been linked to Audi. We know that there have been discussions with Mercedes. I'm sure every team on the grid with an open spot would take Carlos signs at this point. And I think the grid is going to hold until he signs. It's one of those where he's the linchpin. And as soon as you pull that linchpin, then everybody's going to sign up and go their ways. Who is a good fit for Mercedes next year? It could be a one-year deal.

Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, who are you going to convince to come on board who's on the grid right now for a one-year deal? In a car that may not be that competitive, right? It may be okay. I have a feeling it's probably going to be where Ferrari is this year. I have a feeling that's probably going to be next year, where Ferrari is this year. But then Ferrari obviously evolves and challenge Red Bull for not only constructors but drivers.

It seems like 2026 is the next real time that Mercedes is going to be that competitive, right?

Exactly. Well, that's the major shift that you hope brings teams back to ground level and you all start from zero again. I think that's what they're hoping for because I think they know that it's going to take a couple of years to get back to trying to challenge for a driver's and a worker World Constructors' Championship. So who on the grid would be interested in taking a one-year deal? If I'm Alex Alvin, there's no way. I'm not going back to doing that. I already did it at Red Bull. Forget it.

And he's got the team that's built around him.

Yeah. If I'm Esteban O'Khan, I'm the same thing, man. I'm like, Yeah, I mean, LP may suck right now, but who's to say that in a year and a half or two years, they're not that bad. So why would I take a one-year deal to come down to you guys when I maybe get a three-year plus an option up here, back at LP? So it doesn't make sense.

It sounds weird, and I don't think he would do it. But if things don't work out well for... If Ricardo puts in good performances and they retain Checo Perez, do they keep... Does he stay at Racing Bull or does he do what he's always wanted to do? And he's apparently always wanted to be a Ferrari driver and always wanted to be a Mercedes driver.

Man, I don't know. That's a good question. But then he's got to perform, right, Adam?

So he's got to perform.

You can't keep getting beat by Yuki. He's got to be beating Sonoda.

And is Yuki a guy that would...

Well, he's got the Honda deal. He does have backing from Honda.

So I don't necessarily think he- It feels like Aston might be a good fit in the future there.

Well, I think that could be... If Yuki is able to hang around in Formula One long enough, I think that they would probably try and get him over there for sure. I wouldn't see why not. I mean, if you're sponsoring the guy, you'd probably want to try and retain him and hold on to him as long as you can. Good for Aston Martin. If you can move him to another team, yeah, for sure. It'd be good for sure. I think the driver market is just so wide open at the moment. It's interesting. I mean, you had the mirror. I think it was the mirror. They were reporting Carlos Sainz going to Salber for an Audi deal, and he had an ultimatum on when he needed to sign. And I think for Carlos, he probably wants to go to Mercedes. I think Total Wolf doesn't want to give him something that's long term. And then I think at the end of the day, Carlos may have to go somewhere where he's going to get that long term deal, even if that means sacrificing competitive car. That's what I think anyways. Well, the way it looks.

I almost think if Kimi Antenelli can put together, and I'll be honest, I haven't paid attention to F2 in a couple of weeks. But if Kimi Antenelli can put together a good season, if you're going to be non-competitive, all the reports, by the way, are that Mercedes has the best engine right now for 2026. That's the report. Now, I don't know how you verify that, but those are the report. The reports are the Red Bull Ford thing isn't going well, right? And that Ferrari is going to be really competitive, and that Mercedes, the leak set of the is that this is a crazy engine. It's going to be amazing. That's what's it.

Yeah, I don't know where you're getting that info from, right?

Well, it's not great info, let's be honest. But I just want you to know that the rumors are out there.

How can they actually quantify without being on the track and being competitive against each other?

That's a good question.

They even know who's going to be good or not. That's whatever.

Yeah, but these are media reports that are out there, right? And of course, Listen, Tim, the reason that you are the expert, and I am not, is that I bring up the salacious news reports and you bat them down. That's the whole dynamic here. I'm the fan that's reading all the crap, and you're like, That's crap. That's total crap. Okay, that's okay. That's all right. See, this is what we got to do here. We have to do this.

We have to. We must.

That's part of the joy of Formula One is all the salacious news reports. Yeah, for sure. If I'm total wolf, one of the things you have to be considering, you must consider this, is that if you do believe you're going to be extremely competitive in 2026, which is why I brought this up in the first place, if Kimi Antenelli can put together a good season in F2, and 2025, you're going to be mildly competitive, you're going to be fourth or fifth again or whatever, why not bring him in, give him a season under his belt, let George rule the roost as he should, and see what you have?

Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's a good idea. He He's going to have a test in one of Mercedes's older cars in a few weeks. And I think that's going to be just to evaluate what do they have here before putting him into... I think Total Wolf had said before putting him into the W... What was it? The W14? Yes. He was like, Yeah, we're going to put him in a good car first before we put him in.

In a bad car? Yeah. I like that he's got a sense of humor about it.

Oh, yeah. He's pretty good about it, but it's smart to do that. They can evaluate him a little bit more. They can see what they've got. I just don't know if he's going to be right. I haven't been... I've been watching Formula 2. I've been watching what he's been doing. It's been okay. It's not Earth-shattering, but I feel at this moment, he still needs another year in Formula 2, and I don't know if I would take him out of there. Just too early.

Well, he should win. He should win before they take him out of there.

Yeah, I just wouldn't do it. Not yet, anyways. Maybe let's see what happens in two months, and then we can make our own decisions at that point. They mean absolutely nothing.

Here's throwing a wrench in it. You've said to me behind the scenes before, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe you thought staff and Van Dorn got screwed.

Stoffel. Stoffel Van Dorn. Excuse me. Stoffel Van Dorn.

And who is the backup driver for Aston Martin now, right? Is he not the third driver, reserve driver?

No, not really. He does some stuff with him. I don't know.

His full- It's not the same that Nico had.

He was doing some things. I think he's still there in some capacity, but Felipe Djogovitch is their reserve driver now at Aston.

Is Van Dorn? Is he ever going to be... I know You've known him for a long time.

No, I don't think so. I think his Formula One days are done. But I always rated him really high. I thought he was a really great driver. I remember he made his debut in the McLaren, and he was filling in for, I believe it was Alonso, if I'm not mistaken. And he was incredible, man. I think he scored points, if I remember correctly. He was in Bahrain. Yeah, I always rated him pretty high. I always thought he was a very good talent, never really got a good shot. I don't think he got a good shot when he was with McLaren. I don't think- It was a terrible car, terrible powertrain.

Everything was bad.

It was just terrible. I always rated Stoffel very high. How did we get on to Stoffel, man?

I brought him up because I thought, you know what? I'm going through my mind like, who would take a one-year deal at Mercedes? Here's another one. Nico Halkenberg. Contracts up. German driver.

I don't know. I think Nico either stays with Haas or he goes to Sauber.

Wow. Really? That's what I think. Yeah, that's what I think. Well, I guess because Audi, the German connection, too. He's also been very good.

That's what I would do. You got to get that level of experience coming onto your team. You have to consider it. It's going to help you as a new manufacturer They're coming into a Formula One. Yeah, for sure. But that's what I think happens with Nico. He either stays back at Haas or he moves over to be with that Sauber Audi program. For Mercedes, I think, again, you've got to look at experience and you've got to look at who's out there at the moment who's got that experience and who can stay on task with George. But I think Adam, again, It's just going to come down to what are the terms? How long are you going to give a driver? How many years are you going to give him? I don't think you're going to get a really great driver in that seat by just giving them a one-year deal.

Somebody has got to get Nico Halkenberg on podium. Please, God, get that man a podium. He deserves it.

Adam, he had a good race. He did. He's been great this year, actually. He was good in Japan. I thought he was going to get close to getting that final point in the race. Just coming up short, obviously. But I thought he's been excellent. I think he's done really well with Haas. Actually, both drivers have been pretty solid. Even Magnuson had a good race on Sunday. He was 13th and then Hulkenberg 11th. Just a I think both of those Haas drivers have been really strong, and they drove really well in Japan. Again, we've talked about this, but just comes down to what is that team going to do with the upgrades for their car moving forward? But yeah, I think Haas has done really well.

Well, Tim, do you have anything else you'd like to hit from the race, or would you like to go to bed?

Oh, no. I can't talk about the race all the time.

I know you can't. I know you can.

Okay, I feel bad for Vultory Bata.

Oh, I mean, great Great weekend. And listen, Sauber really had better pit stops, did they not? Four seconds instead of 40. That's an improvement.

Yeah, they were good. I think I just Yeah, I just feel so bad for him. Man, there was a whole cluster of them that came in for a stop towards the end of the race. He was in there. He had Sonoda, Sergeant, if I remember correctly, Bottas was in there. And I think, obviously, Obviously, with the Rb, they nailed that pit stop, man. Absolutely nailed it for Yuki. Then for Bottas, again, he was also in contention for that final point as well. Get screwed with a four-second pit stop. I feel bad for the guy. New upgrade on the car, too. New floor for the car. He done well with it. Man.

You know what? He's still a really good driver. I know people aren't paying attention to him, but he's getting the most out of that car.

So we got questions in the debrief, Adam.

Let's do that.

Gabriel Marenci.

Oh, hi, Gabriel. Wow.

I know. This is pretty sweet. He says, Great job, Tim. I enjoy your work. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate that. And I'm sure Adam does as well.

He said- I appreciate Tim as well.

Yeah. He wants to know who had the fastest pit stop. So the fastest pit stop, that went to Red Bull. And I believe I believe it was 2.01, and that's how fast it was. I believe that's the exact timing of it. But yeah, Red Bull 2.08, and And then you had Perez just behind 2.13, and then Lando Norris was a 2.31, but was max for Stappen. Red Bull Racing, 2.08, fastest pit stop in the race. At Greg Scharff, How badly could William's woes with crashes affect their development in the short and the long term? Yeah, I mean, Greg, it is something that Adam and I touched on, but essentially, it's just going to throw a huge wrench into this development war that we are starting to see in Formula One. And man, it can hurt them badly, I think. They could have projected, Hey, we want some upgrades for Imala, but now because Because of these crashes, maybe that puts them back a few races because of all the crash damage. At F1 Fiend, how did Charles Leclerc make it on a stop on hard tires and Lewis Hamilton couldn't? I think he means by the one stopper.

I believe Leclerc was running the mediums, if I'm not mistaken. But I think a big part of that is how that Mercedes obviously uses the tire, the tire deg, And eventually, they're going to need another upgrade that's going to help them sort that out. Jay Money, how nice is it that the pure dominance of Carlos Sainz has been stopped? It's nice to see someone else win for a change. Adam, do you want to take that one?

I think that's funny. That's good, man. You know what? I don't think you can stop what's going on with Carlos Sines right now. I hope If all things go right, he'll be the first driver in Formula One to get two wins since 2022. Two wins other than Max and Sergio. I think that's amazing. That's an amazing thing. Tim, when it comes down to it, the first weekend where Red Bull gets soundly defeated, they don't get pull, they don't win the race. Who is the driver at Ferrari that pulls it off?

I Because we know Carlos isn't the best qualifier, but- I'm going to say Charles Leclerc. Just simply, here's what he's going to do. He's going to get pull, and thankfully, he's got that nice clean air in front of him. He's going to be able to sail off right off into the sunset. No tire deg for him because he's got no dirty air in front of him to slow him down. And that's what's going to happen. Carlos Sainz is going to maybe finish second or third. Max will probably second or third, one or the other. And that's how it's going down.

I love it. I love it.

We got one more from Fiona. Can whoever's using Daniel's voodoo doll stop now? In all seriousness, do you think we'll see a Lewis Hamilton podium anytime soon? That's actually a good question. I mean, I think, Adam, for Lewis, it's going to be a difficult year for sure. But you got to take a look at what Ferrari is doing because he probably just nailed something here again. He's probably going to go to Ferrari next year and do some damage. They're going to be good. He could potentially, if they're able to keep this development rate up.

Yeah.

Man, I could see him in Leclerc, pushing Verstappen for a driver's championship.

Yeah. I mean, it's so... First off, you're right about the voodoo doll. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Lewis, I don't know. It's going to be a great day when he does. But damn, Mercedes is just not that competitive, right? It's just not. Tim, do you think that they can upgrade it enough? I mean, we saw him, Leclerc, and do a crazy turnaround last year. Can Mercedes bring the upgrades that you need to get into the top three?

It's going to be hard, man. Just to see where everybody was after Japan. I don't think Aston Martin is the fourth fastest team. I do think Aston Martin is probably fifth. I think in Mercedes is definitely fourth. And then you've got McLaren, like you had said earlier in the show. I just think that gap between that fourth, fifth to third, it's just a tiny bit too much. You really have to nail your development to, I think, close that gap down and surpass McLaren. I think that may be hard because I think McLaren is really onto something, man. Once they start getting their issues with corner exit and slow speed corners, McLaren is going to be- Is that a relatively easy problem to fix, all things considered? It's hard because once you try to fix something, you create... Sometimes you create a problem somewhere else. I see. Or you try to fix something, but you take away a bit of what you're good at. What the car is good at. Okay. And you don't want to do that. It's just trying to find that balance between all of it that really makes sense.

And let's be honest, we could use a little more McLaren speed on a straight away. We just could. We need a little more of that.

Mclaren? I like McLaren. Do you want to do grid rival?

Let's do it. Oh, man. Did I have a rough week? Just terrible. Okay, Tim, at one point, I was 14th. I'm now 61st. I went to 43 last week and 61 this week. Who were your drivers?

Oh, Oh, man, my team is horrible. I dropped to 273. Oh, God.

Who'd you pick?

Oh, dude. I haven't swept my drivers there at all yet. Dana Ricardo, Alvin, Piastri, Russell Stroll, Williams is my team. That's who I've had for the last four races.

See, this is why you got to sign the one-race contract, Tim. But one guy I locked up, obviously right at the beginning was Verstoppen, but I think I got Piastri what I thought was on a deal. I got him for around 20 million, and he's now up at 22 for Capspace, and he's still above his five-race average. He had 131 points. Charles Leclerc, I locked up a couple of races ago because he'd had a rough race, and I was like, Okay, well, I'm going to get him while he's low. And then the other guy I locked up for five races, I'm like, Lewis Hamilton, how much further is he going to fall? And of course, today, my first race with him, he falls again. And then I had Logan Sargent That went well. And because I have no money left, Sauber. So it's just bad. It's just bad, man.

My thing is, what's better? Is it do you want to have a competitive team or do you want to go for the drivers and have a non-competitive team?

See, to me... Oh, it's tough.

It's so tough. I know. That's what I was thinking, too.

Yeah. Because the one thing I will say is that if you nail the driver under 19 million where you can star them and double their points, you nail them that week, that makes your entire week. And you're looking at the guys. If you look at the guys who are at the top, they nail it every single flippin week. Sunar is just crushing us all, and he put Nico Halkenberg in that spot. Nico had a great race, right? All you have to do is get the guy to finish 12. So he's got a lot of the same drivers I do for Stoppin, Piastri, Hamilton, and he put Magnuson, and then has the Red Bull team. Red Bull, sexy. See? I killed it.

That's what I think. You put the right team. That's what I think. You can find that mix of you get that star driver, but then you get that right team. And that's where I think it is. We've had a shuffle up in the top five for sure. Noah Blake, 58. Second, MS18, they dropped to third. Tied for third is the Hominator.

And then in fifth, we've got Cycris, he also jumped up or they also jumped up as well. So it's- A lot of big winners this week. And you know what's crazy? Sunhire has already got $122 million in Capspace. I know, I saw that, dude. I hate it. I hate it. I just want them to know I hate it. Well, Tim, listen, we're going to let you go. We let you get a good night's sleep, my friend. We'll catch up a little later this week, and we'll see what drama unfolds between now and Thursday.

Sounds good. Thanks, Adam.